Work in progress. This document, together with the governance rules, terms of use and code of conduct below, is a living draft open to community discussion. It takes full force on 1 January 2027. Until then the community is invited to challenge, refine and add to it; changes made before that date need no amendment procedure.
Tool-assisted speedrunning (TAS) is the art of playing games beyond human limits. This art combines innovation, creativity, ingenuity, and skills to exploit games in astonishing ways. This organization is dedicated to the advancement, production, and archival of TAS works.
Every provision below carries a number, so any part of this document can be cited exactly: section 1 states what this community believes, section 2 how it governs itself, section 3 the terms of using the site, section 4 how we treat each other. A citation looks like § 2.3.4.
This craft exists because its pioneers developed and embraced tools for us to enjoy games in a whole different way. This site promotes and encourages the use of new tools and technologies to advance our hobby.
Similar to arXiv.org, works are archived the instant they are submitted; there is no centralized bureau deciding what is worthy. Reproducing and verifying works are open acts of the community, rewarded and open to anyone; merit is evaluated by the larger gaming community. Once a work is archived, it stays archived: better runs may supersede it, but no editorial opinion can erase it.
The organization and all its channels are dedicated to the topic of TAS, speedrunning and gaming in general. No off-topic discussions, especially of controversial topics, shall be conducted here. Gaming is fun; politics is not.
We welcome everybody interested in this hobby. We do not screen for personality, identity, or beliefs. Nobody is, nor is expected to be, perfect. Everybody is given the chance to prove themselves and to learn from past mistakes.
What people do outside this site is outside our jurisdiction. We do not stalk anyone's social media, we do not join pile-ons, and we do not practice cancel culture. No one is suppressed here for non-criminal acts performed outside the site, whether today or in their past. Standing in this community is earned and lost by what you do here.
Rules are few and enforced with restraint. Every moderation action is justified, temporary, redeemable, and logged in the open together with the rule it enforces. Nothing is punished automatically: a human decides, and every decision can be appealed. No one is ever sanctioned for what they think or believe.
The goal of this organization is to increase the amount of joy in the world. Malicious acts will be suppressed and, where warranted, legally pursued. These include discrimination (against or in favor of any group), hatred, abuse, bullying, and intentional acts that hurt the sustainability, technical integrity, legal status, or reputation of the organization.
Open source, open data, open verification. Anyone can clone the archive, re-run any movie, and rebuild the entire site. In addition, all code repositories should be public and offered with free licensing.
Every contribution is honestly attributed to every human who shaped it. Disclosing your tools and methods is a badge, never a confession, and never an obligation. The one unforgivable act is claiming work that is not yours.
This is a labor of love, not a business. No ads, no paywalls, no premium tiers, no data sold, no sponsorships steering content, and no commercial purpose of any kind. Everything here is free to use, free to copy, and free to build upon, and it will stay that way.
The principles in section 1 say what we believe. This says who decides what. It is written to guarantee, as far as any document can, that the community always steers this organization: power is granted openly, exercised in the open, and always answers to the people it serves.
2.1.1 A simple majority means more than half of the votes cast within a seven-day voting window. There is no quorum; absence counts as abstention.
2.1.2 A hard majority means at least two thirds (66%) of all sitting Committee members, not just those who voted.
2.2.1 The Founder carries the legal, technical, and financial responsibility for the site.
2.2.2 The Founder's role is permanent.
2.2.3 The Founder may veto a Committee decision: once per decision, in public, with reasons.
2.2.4 The Founder's veto never applies to moderation decisions.
2.2.5 A hard majority of the Committee overrides a Founder veto.
2.2.6 The site must be able to operate without the intervention of the Founder.
2.3.1 The Committee steers all strategic decisions: initiatives, appointments, and direction.
2.3.2 Every initiative is proposed publicly on the forum before it is voted, and anyone may discuss it there.
2.3.3 Ordinary decisions pass by simple majority.
2.3.4 Overriding a Founder veto requires a hard majority.
2.3.5 Removing a member from any role requires a hard majority.
2.3.6 Amending this document requires a hard majority, and only after a 14-day public comment period.
2.3.7 Committee votes are public and named.
2.3.8 Only votes concerning individual people may be held by secret ballot; the tally is always published.
2.3.9 Appointments are meritocratic: proven contribution to the TAS hobby, in any capacity, is the qualification.
2.3.10 The Committee has no fixed size, but stays commensurate with the size of the community it serves.
2.3.11 Members must abstain from votes in which they are personally involved.
2.3.12 In case of prolonged absence, infrastructural decay (domain or hosting lost), or manifest anti-community behavior from the Founder, the Steering Committee has the responsibility of migrating the site and archive to a new safe haven and designating a new Founder by hard majority.
2.4.1 Moderators are appointed by the Committee by simple majority.
2.4.2 Moderators enforce the rules on everyone: community, Experts, Committee, and Founder alike.
2.4.3 The Founder cannot veto a moderation decision.
2.4.4 The Committee can override a moderation decision by simple majority.
2.4.5 Moderators may admonish, but not remove, the Founder or Committee members.
2.4.6 Removing a Committee member requires the Committee's removal process first.
2.4.7 Every moderation act is justified in public, logged permanently, appealable, and never automatic.
2.5.1 Experts are the authorities on their games and game groups.
2.5.2 Experts decide categories and goals, verification criteria, game presentation, and disputes.
2.5.3 Any single Committee member may appoint an Expert at any time.
2.5.4 Any Expert appointment may be annulled by the Committee by simple majority vote.
2.5.5 Group Experts approve new games in their group.
2.5.6 Group Experts appoint game-specific Experts under them.
2.5.7 Experts curate the rules of the game and its goals. They do not evaluate quality; the community does, by liking, verifying, and reproducing.
2.6.1 Any member may appeal a moderation decision; the Committee decides appeals.
2.6.2 The community may propose initiatives to change any way in which the site operates, to remove anybody from the role defined above, or to modify this document.
2.6.3 An initiative voted postively by at least 10% of the published authors and contributor base must be evaluated and voted for by the steering committee.
2.6.4 An initiative voted positively by more than 50% of the published authors and contributor base is binding and cannot be vetoed.
2.6.4 The archive is open data and the site is open source, so the community holds the ultimate veto that no document can grant or remove: everything here can be forked.
2.7.1 No role (Founder, Committee, Moderator, or Expert) may rank or unrank a run by decree.
2.7.2 Nobody may alter the archive's history or erase a contribution.
2.7.3 Nobody may moderate outside the public log.
2.7.4 A run's status is derived from the community's recorded acts, always.
2.7.5 If a decision wasn't made in the open, it wasn't made.
3.1 Every archived work stays archived. Better runs supersede it; nothing is erased.
3.2 You keep authorship of what you submit, and you grant this archive the right to distribute it under CC BY 4.0. Works imported from TASVideos keep their original CC BY 2.0 terms.
3.3 Honest attribution of every human author is the one hard rule. Disclosing the tools you used to create the work is required for reproduction, disclosing the use of any other tools (e.g., bots, AI) is optional.
3.4 Never upload ROMs or any other copyrighted game data.
3.5 The minimum age to hold an account is 13.
3.6 The archive is open data and the site is open source: anyone may clone, verify and fork everything here.
4.1 Be here for the games. Discussion stays about TAS, the works and the craft.
4.2 Act in good faith, and assume it in others.
4.3 Criticize the work, never the person.
4.4 Everybody is welcome. Harassment and discrimination are not.
4.5 Moderation is restrained, justified in public, logged, and appealable.
